[Thanks for the reviews and the love!:) One review mentioned how in the previous chapter how Niles came across as so weak. This was interesting and made me think whether I could have developed that side more. I think in my mind, he went to CC to talk, but in the end there was not much to say in front of the enormity of what he did and her obvious reaction to his visit. But it was a good exercise to think of alternatives, so thanks for the comment :))

I am about to post two chapters because the one here below is kinda short and lame, a bit of a transition chapter].

After Niles' visit, CC became even more nervous, more restless. In order to fill even more of her time, she started to go running in Central Park at dawn, before work. Sometimes she ran for two straight hours, leaving her legs in pain and her heart racing. Sometimes she exerted herself so hard that she threw up. It wasn't a health kick, as she had got into the habit of devouring fast food and entire tubs of ice cream almost every night, alone in her apartment. Running was only a way to let some of the anger out. It didn't seem to work. She had started to shout at people at the theatre again, finding any reason to do so, so much so that people were actively avoiding her, and silence descended in her presence. She didn't care. In fact, she liked to be feared. It made her feel like she was more than nothing, more than the nothing that Niles had made her feel.

A couple of months after Niles' visit, Tammy knocked on CC's door in the middle of the morning.

"What is it?"

Tammy entered carrying a huge bunch of flowers which almost covered her entirely.

"Miss Babcock, this came for you…" In normal circumstances, she would have made a joke about a secret admirer, but with the recent Babcock mood, she wouldn't dare.

"Okay… Hm… Thanks, Tammy, just leave it on that chair and I'll have a look."

CC let the door close behind Tammy and finished the document she was editing before she took the flowers and examined them. It was a huge bundle, it must have been expensive. There were several kinds of flowers, including some beautiful roses. CC looked for a card, anything. She finally found a small one, and it read: To the One I still wish was my wife. N.

Anger already started to flare in CC's chest. The guts of that man! Why on earth would he do that? Why now? She stared at the stupid piece of paper and, seconds before scrunching it in her fist, she saw a small date written at the bottom. A date. Today's date. Shit.

It was a year. A year since their whirlwind wedding. Today would have been their first wedding anniversary. They had now been separated longer than they had been together.

CC threw the flowers on the floor with all the strength she could muster. Then she picked them up again and banged them on the desk, on the chair, on the wall, petals and leaves scattering everywhere. She threw the bunch on the floor again and kicked it, then trampled it, like crazy.

Tammy heard the noises and waited for the sound to calm down somewhat before venturing through the door, to see her boss sat on the floor, panting in the middle of a destroyed flower arrangement, a surreal picture of a gothic figure on a bed of dead flowers.

CC looked at Tammy but her eyes were distant, she saw her and didn't see her at the same time. Tammy felt scared, and made to leave. But CC regained lucidity, and Tammy saw her eyes sparkle.

"M-miss Ba-Babcock, a-are you okay?"

"I am okay." CC replied calmly. "All is fine. Why would it not be?" She said sarcastically, smiling, a sweetness in her voice that made Tammy shiver. "I think I need to go home for the day. Call the cleaner, will you?"

After his return from New York, Niles became quiet again. But in many ways, more resigned. Quite surprisingly, seeing CC had helped him feel that there should be no hope left, and that he should try to move on.

Fran was burning to scream "told you so" on his face, but his face was so wrinkled with pain and sadness, that there was really no reason to humiliate the poor man further. He had really caused his own demise and it was impossible to not feel sorry for him.

He went back to going mechanically through life, and took some pleasure in taking care of the family. He especially obsessed about cooking perfect meals, becoming very nervous if an ingredient was missing from the pantry, or if something was over- or undercooked by just two seconds. He also cleaned the house obsessively and particularly frequently – Max joked often to Fran that he wished he had worked so hard all along, but was careful not to let Niles hear that small sarcastic remark. Overall, Niles threw herself into a perfectionism that was never part of his character, some sort of compulsion to make up for what he had destroyed so carelessly. Fran found herself often tip-toing around his now often obsessive manners – more than once, he was triggered by the natural chaos a mother of two twins would leave behind.

He had agreed a while ago to help with preparations for the twins' first birthday. Fran thought it would be a good idea to give him a specific project to focus on, and he usually enjoyed dealing with cakes and balloons, but now he seemed to go out of his way to avoid any task related to it. It only occurred to Fran a few days before the party: the twins' birthday was also Niles and CC's wedding anniversary. Or rather, it would have been. Those small children, barely able to speak or walk, had been alive longer than Niles' marriage had lasted.

On the day of the party, he finally joined in the preparations, blowing some balloons and preparing the muffins he had promised. Once the table was arranged – to perfection, and to his idea of perfection, and no one else's, he hugged the twins tightly and excused himself. He saw the sad look in Fran's eyes as he grabbed his car keys and left the house, but, as much as he loved those cute little children, he just couldn't help it, he couldn't be there to celebrate the events of only one year earlier.

He set off driving, and he didn't know where he was heading to. He drove up and down the coast, considering stopping on any of his favourites waterfronts and beaches, but never deciding to do so. He didn't know that his route and mindless driving were so similar to what CC herself had done after discovering his infidelity. In the late afternoon, he stopped near a pier and walked through the sunset crowd, losing himself in the mass of people, oblivious to the groups of teenagers, the hot blondes that looked all the same – copies of the Eleanor that had blinded him with lust – the couples walking hand in hand, like he and CC could have done and never did, so busy were their first months in LA before the dream shattered. If their relationship had been a beautiful vase, he was the one who had dropped it, and trampled on it to reduce it to dust.

But none of it mattered as he blindly walked back and forth, until darkness came, the restaurants filled up, and he walked on the beach. It was hours later that he somehow remembered to go back to the car, even more miraculously remembered where he had parked, and mechanically drove back home, where the party had been over for a while, the new staff had cleaned everything to perfection – not that he was in the mood to check – and he just crashed face down on the bed, exhausted by the tension of just existing while he felt there was nothing he deserved, not even the air he breathed.